They said it would be five days

If you look at my previous post, you'll see that when I called on the 8th, the guy on the phone said that I would be called back within five days. Its now the 13th and I've had no callback. I just them again. An answer phone said:

"All of our operators are busy right now. You might try to call back later... or try online... Goodbye"

Then it hung up. It didn't put me on hold. It ended the call.

I replaced the handset and called again and this time got put in the queue.

After 10 minutes on hold a lady told me that she could see that the last time I called was on the 8th of October and that they had sent my case to head office. They would either call me back within five days or they would write to me within the next 15 days. Thus I was still within the time scale. I didn't feel that there was any point asking any more of her since past experience has clearly shown me that there is precious little she'd be able to do. She said that I'd have to wait until the 29th of October.

The third deadline that the German Child Benefit Office has given us was the 20th of October, so I'll have to explain to them, yet again, that we are trying to get the document that they need but that we are unable to do so at present.

The Child Benefit Office is a Shambles

Since the 28th of July I've been trying to stop my child benefit payments and get some sort of official notice that those payments have been stopped. I have been calling every one to two weeks to try and accomplish this but I am faced with a wall of resistance. The call centre staff are not allowed to do much for me and it seems impossible to escalate the matter to someone that can actually do anything. The following letter of complaint details the story.

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Dear Sir/Madam,

I feel that I must start by saying that your office is, quite simply, a shambles.

My family and I have moved to Germany and we are now entitled to the German equivalent of Child Benefit. This amounts to €300 a month here, but the German authorities require that I prove that I am no longer recieving any benefit in the UK. This proof can be by way of a letter, a fax of that letter or even a simple email from your office that says when the last payment was made.

On the 28th of July I called to tell your office that I had left the country and that I needed your office to stop payments of child benefit into my account. I was told that there was a form that I needed to fill out and that the form would be in the post. It took a few weeks but the form finally arrived at my address in Germany. Since I was in London a couple of days later, I posted it from a London post box, first class, on a Saturday morning at around 8am.

I called on the Tuesday to see if the form had arrived and the lady in the call centre told me that it shouldn’t be expected to arrive for two weeks. Two weeks? I asked why it takes so long as it was first class mail from a London post box and should have arrived on the Monday morning. I was informed that it would indeed arrive at your post room on the Monday but that it can take two weeks to arrive at the relevant department. How can it take two weeks for a letter, that is clearly labeled as being to the Child Benefit office, to go from your post room to the correct departmental office?

I waited the two weeks and called again. It seemed that the form had arrived but that it would take 10 days to process it. Then it would need to be approved by some sort of group before I would be told, officially, that I was not receiving any child benefit. The call centre operator did however tell me that the payments had been stopped. I asked if I could just have an email to that effect – just two lines to say that the payments had been stopped and from what date. He told me that he could not do this. I was asked to be patient as a letter would be sent in due course.

I waited a week more and then received another form, the same one that I posted in London. I called to ask why I had received another form to fill out. I was told that it had been a mistake and that I should discard it. I asked whether my case had yet been processed and but the person I spoke to couldn’t tell me. She said that someone would call me back in the next five days.

I received a call a couple of days later to tell me that the notice had been sent and should be with me within 10 days. Why does it take so long to send a letter in the post? Other mail to my German address from the UK takes only three days.

After two weeks I had still not received it and so I called back again. I was again told that it had been sent and that I should be patient. Another week passed and I called back again. The call centre operator was unable to help me as to whether the notice had even been sent. I asked to speak to a manager but none was available to speak to me. I asked if one could call me back and was assured that a manager would do so before 17:00 that day. Nobody did. I called back at 17:30 and demanded to speak to a manager. I was told that there was nothing that a manager could do for me that the call centre person couldn’t but I would be put through anyway, if I still wanted to be. I did. The call centre operative was right, the manager couldn’t do anything but promise me that someone else would call me back.

I asked if she could make a screen shot, send an email or do ANYTHING to simply show that I’m not receiving benefit, but she told me that she could not do anything. I asked if I can make a complaint but was told that I can only do so via a letter to yourselves. Your website says that I can make a complaint by phone, but when I pointed this out to the manager I was told that the website must be wrong.

On the 6th of October I called your office to chase this matter up again, but your systems were down. On the 7th of October I called again, but your systems were still down. I called this morning and spoke to another call centre operative. I explained the whole story anew and he put me on hold while he investigated. When he came back, he was unable to tell me why I hadn’t yet received the letter and couldn’t even tell me whether it had been sent. He said that someone from the relevant department would call me back within the next five days. If that didn’t happen, then the letter would be sent and I should expect it in the next FIFTEEN days. Am I to wait yet another 15 days before continuing my telephone campaign?

All I need is a couple of lines in an email or a letter that states that I’m no longer receiving money in the form of child benefit. An email would take a matter of 30 seconds to send and I have been trying to get this for well over two months now. With every month that goes by, my children lose out on €300. This is absolutely unnacceptable. I have spoken to everyone I have access to via your call center and I have got nowhere. I feel that unless I can get this resolved in the next couple of weeks, then I’ll have to look into escalating this issue further using legal means.